Yesterday evening, 10th April, we launched “New Song Café Southampton” at my home church. For those not in the know, this is a “Fresh Expression” of Church that is built around two sets of six worship songs (12 in total), interspersed with coffee, chat, cake, a brief message, prayer and opportunities for witness and mutual encouragement.

In all sorts of ways it was a great “success”:

At least seven churches were represented;

A number of people attended who don’t normally attend church;

Some people had brought colleagues along;

Attendance was about double what I had anticipated;

Engagement in the singing was fantastic.

There is a temptation, then, to expect a “but” following a list like that, isn’t there? “It was great, but…

…We need to not get complacent, or

…the sound could have been better, or

…we should have planned for more, or

…we must remember who it is all for…”

You get the idea. All of these things are true, but sometimes, I think we should also just allow ourselves to CELEBRATE and recognise when we feel that God has done something really special.

As I prepared to lead the evening, and after three hours of setting up, I decided that I needed to just stop fiddling and fussing and prepare myself spiritually. A lot of prayer had already gone before, but this was a moment when I knew that I had to hand it all over to God. I turned to the nearest person and said, “I just need someone to pray with me.” I closed my eyes and two people just gathered with me – one was Kate, my wife, and the other a friend, Jane, who prayed into this “birthing moment”. There was an intimacy in this prayer and in this moment, despite all the busyness around us, and the last-minute preparations still going on, there was a sense in which I felt that God was releasing me from “responsibility” and saying,

“Nigel – I can take it from here… be at peace.”

I guess that a physical birth must sometimes have an element of that – all the preparations have been done; the home has been prepared, medical appointments attended, people informed, clothing purchased… but there comes a moment when you recognise that, whether you feel completely ready or not, this child is going to arrive anyway!

So, as the clock ticked away to 7:00 pm, there was, for a moment, a settling in prayer; a handing over to God – to the Holy Spirit. A moment when all my striving, and that of the fantastic team, became secondary to what God was about to do. He was about to touch lives and touch hearts; He was about to breathe upon us; He was about to transform guitar and voices – and drums and lights – and decorations – and even cake from something physical and mundane into something spiritual; something that can stir hearts and lift the spirit and open our souls to the possibility that even here, in this place, there is an Open Heaven – a place where heaven and earth meet and the Good Good Father rejoices with us in the intimacy of worship and new birth.